Yeah going on from what Razor said, CA's have the bucket shim setup, where as the SR have Y rocker arms, which then to break or come apart at high RPM. I have a CA18 so I'm biased, But I think peopel regard the SR better is because the displacment is bigger and the turbo is slightly of higher quality. But much to their own, they are both Nissan engines so oth are engineering marsterpieces!!

Damo

39kW * 5 = 200kW

That's 500% increase in power.

A lot of Rego people restrict it to 15% increase in power and things like that.

If you can fit an SR20DET..fit that.

Chris

Now I get cheers Chris

Well by the sound of it the CA is the stronger engine. So Im now 60% CA

Blair

SR20DET, it does have some weakness in the valvetrain, if the engine is revved over 7500rpm, which is out of it's (stock) power band anyway. But it can be fixed with a set of $60 rocker arm stoppers, or by replacing the lifters with an aftermarket solid "lash killer" kit from Tomei and the like. Even with just stock valvetrain and the $60 Rocker Arm Stoppers, you can pump over 450 rwhp out of a stock SR20, just don't over rev the engine and make sure it's tuned properly (DON'T GO LEAN!). These engines are a lot more grunty than the CA18, but you can rev the piss out of a CA18 compared to the SR. Also not to mention the CA18's (at least around here) are getting harder to find and are a lot older too. SR20 aftermarket support is absolutely awesome! The CA's aren't bad at all, and definitely a great donor to the 1200's but if I had a choice, I'd go SR anyday over CA. I'm going SR and aiming for 300 rwhp, it's gonna be scary, but frickin awesome.

-Andy

AFRacer is right about SR motor, i have also read a lot of praise about SR its been mentioned along with RB26 and VG30DETT motors in more then one magazines. CA is not even mentioned, stock internals r reliable for over 400HP. so imo it isnt relevent whether it makes that much power above 7500 rpm or lower, what matters is easier HP and torque potential.
beside that CA might b easy swap.

I'm going SR20DET too in my 2 door.
The car is LHD so I will have some clearance problems with the Steering box. But I discovered a AU company selling top mount turbo manifolds. So this problem can be fixed. As a Nissan technician all I can tell about the weaknesses of the SR20DE(T) is, the SR20DE is strong! Have a few customers with NX's and Primera's (think this is G20 in the US) with more than 200.000 km with no problem at all, not even oil burning. The SR20DET is another story. The first cars sold in Europe all finished with a worn out exhaust cam. Changing only the cam wasn't enough, as Nissan was still producing the same bad one. The second generation came 2 years later and was OK! But changing just the cams wasn't enough as we discovered later. All the metal dust had found it's way through the engine, NVTC, Turbo and cam lubrification channel. So after the cams it was up to the Turbo and last but not least the engine lost compression.
But once the engine redone with the new cams, no problem anymore.

Just my 2 cents

lets face it ..... in a car that only had 69hp standard ( at the flywheel) either one of the engines is going to make it go like a bat out of hell !!!!

fit the engine that is easiest to squeeze into the engine bay, add a few go fast bits, some bigger brakes....and hold on real tight when u mash the loud pedal !!

Ever looked at the body shell of a car with a hot SR20DET fitted after its been in about 12 months. Cracks seem to be a significant problem.

I prefer CA's for their responsiveness and low mass in the engine bay.

I think its all a bit academic about useable power outputs as I havent seen any datto that could handle 300 hp in any convincing fashion with controllability and maintaining traction in anything but a straight line.

Alright for block bunnies

i have a few projects on the go, my main one being an SR powered 1600. but today i got my 1600 race car running and driving with a totally standard (except it has a dump pipe only exhaust) CA turbo. ho lee crap. on boost, all it took was a bit of a throttle squeeze and up lit the tyres! my point is... the CA, even in totally standard form, in a 1200 has power to weight fiqures that only the extremely expensive sports cars have. find me a factory car that could drag a mildly tweaked (140 - 150 kwatw) CA 1200 and then look at its associated price tag. as others have said, it really does depend on what you want out of your car?

another good example... datsun 1200 wagon - SR, GT40 turbo, injectors, aftermarket ECU blah blah
230kwatw.
11.0 quarter mile on slicks

1200 sedan, CA 15 psi, cooler, exhaust, the rest untouched..
12.9 quarter mile on road tyres

theres about ten grand for that extra 1.9 seconds

What did CA18DET's/SR20DET's come in??